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traders, merchants and yeomen; the artisans and builders; free peasants, etc.
Outstanding performance in the Organization of such first Assembly of the Three
Orders had the Lords of the Dog, especially the first three named, Pierre Flotte, Robert of
Artois and Count of Saint Pol. Pierre Flotte spoke to Parliament in the name of the King, and
his words are still remembered: –«The Pope has sent us the letters in which he declares
that we must submit unto him as to the temporal government of our Kingdom refers,
and that we must abide not only the crown of God, as was always believed, but also
the Apostolic See. According to this statement, the Pontiff convokes to all the
prelates of this Kingdom to a Council in Rome, to reform the abuses which he said
that have been committed by us and our functionaries in the administration of our
States. You know, in other hand, in which manner the Pope impoverishes the Church
of France giving at his freewill behoofs which incomes pass to foreign hands. You
ignore that the Churches are overwhelmed by tithes demands; that the metropolitans
don’t have now the authority over their suffragans; neither the Bishops over their
clergy; which in one word, the Court of Rome, reducing the episcopacy to nowt,
attracts to himself; power and money. It is necessary to curb these outrages. Thus, we
beseech you, as Lords and as Friends, to help us to defend the liberties of the
Kingdom and of the Church. In what treats about us, if it is necessary, to sacrifice for
these double motive our goods, our lives and, if the circumstances demand it, the ones
of our children». The position of Philip the Fair was supported in collective form by the
General States.
The Nobles and the Cities subscribed quite letters in which they refused in hard terms
the accusations against the King they denounced, at the same time, the intention of the Pope
to convert the Kingdom in an ecclesiastical feud; but the relations went poisoned more and
more. During the Assembly, the most atrocious crimes attributed to Boniface VIII had been
made public: the usurpation of the papal investiture, murder, simony, heresy, sodomy, etc; and
such lack of moral authority, from who pretended to become Supreme Soverign, was divulged
through all the corners of the Kingdom by the publicists of Philip the Fair. So, the people were
with their King and would not react adversely before any initiative that would have as finality
to limit the ambitions of Boniface VIII.
In regard to the Bishops, they were in front of the following dilemma: if they concurred
to the Council, would be considered «personal enemies» of the King; they could be accused of
treason and, just as occurred to the Bishop of Pamier, judged by civil courts. But, if they not,
they would be excommunicated by Boniface VIII. Nevertheless, even by the terrible retaliations
that had promised the Pope to those who don’t present in Rome, the majority of the Bishops
were in the side of King, to whom they considered as a worthier representative of Catholic
Religion: only the Golems and the spies of Philip IV would go in November to the Council; it
means, only 36 would go of a total of 78 French Bishops. But before the Council, in july 11 of
1302, an unfortunate event came to tarnish the Mystical Court of Philip the Fair: to suffocate a
general revolt that had sprouted in Flanders, Philip sends a powerful army of Knights, which
results annihilated such day in the battle of Courtrai; and in the battlefield remains forever the
invaluable Pierre Flotte, Robert de Artois, and the Count of Saint Pol, three Lords of the Dog
whose performance was the main factor of the success of the Strategy of Philip IV. Other

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